Fifty shades of kink

The cover of the first Twilight book Twlight shows a pair of hands holding an apple Now since we already know that Twilight is about a plain Jane falling in love with the Most Boring Vampire in the World we are aware that an apple has nothing to do with the plot really unless itrsquos the official fruit of Forks and no one told us about it Mythologically the apple signifies temptation or the forbidden fruit mdash that which you cannot have but want anyway Edward is the ultimate forbidden fruit because his love story with Bella is akin to a deer choosing to mate with a leopard The apple also signifies something sinister mdash after Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge they were banished from the Garden of Eden Thus if Bella chooses to eat her forbidden apple shersquoll have to make sacrifices mdash ostentatiously her humanity mdash and if yoursquod choose to look deeper her virginity Stephenie Meyerrsquos ridiculously popular series was a tease It promised a lot of the violent sex that comes with vampire romance but gave very little with most of the sex happening in the background only after Edward and Bella were hitched It was a religious lesson sneakily wrapped in sexual attraction leaving the fancies of legions of crazed female fans tickled but not sated Meyer almost created a void mdash to be filled by a book targeted at the same crazed fans with scenes of graphic kinky sex between a virginal girl and a man in a position of power Enter Fifty Shades of Grey UKrsquos bestselling book of all time Fifty Shades of Grey sold 53 million copies in four months since its release in April 2012 according to the Herald Sun to achieve that title The story of a virgin falling for a bondageloving billionaire was lapped up by women of all ages leaving books like Harry Potter and The Da Vinci Code behind and ushering in a new generation of readers In India the series has sold 175000 copies and counting with the Twilight series doing a grand total of 550000 so far According to Arunima Roy publicity manager at Hatchette India Twilight exceeded its Indian sales target by 20 per cent Pic used for representationalu00a0purposes only Thinkstock Photos u00a0 Others like you This begs the question mdash just what kind of an impact have these rather huge pop culture influencers made on society and its acceptance of deviant sexualityu00a0The International Business Times says that sales of ropes and handcuffs in New York have correspondingly increased since the series became a runaway success Dr Reema Shah a Mahimbased psychotherapist says she has seen the ldquoTwilight Revolutionrdquo as she likes to call it make a lot of younger couples come to her and talk mdash about bondage dominance submission and masochism BDSMu00a0 ldquoThey come for a few sessions when they just want to know what it is that theyrsquore feelingrdquo Shah says ldquoThen there are the concerned parents who stumble upon BDSM sites their teenage children are going to and simply want to educate themselves and understand how to deal with something like thatrdquo Author EL James at the Fifty Shades Of Grey QampA at Barnes amp Noble Union Square in May in New York City pic getty images AFP Photo Itrsquos not that there are more cases of people indulging in sexual deviance itrsquos just that theyrsquore more willing to talk about it Shah says Her opinion is echoed by Dr Rajan Bhonsle MD Professor amp HOD Department of Sexual Medicine KEM Hospital He says pop culture hasnrsquot led to sexual experimentation but has created an environment safe enough for people to approach experts with their problems ldquoAs a therapist I have been seeing an increased number of cases of BDSM since the past few yearsbecause people read about it and realise that theyrsquore not the only ones wanting to experimentrdquou00a0He adds ldquoEarlier theyrsquod have felt like weirdos Now they know that therapy is available and an expertrsquos opinion can be takenrdquo Bedroom politics Bhonsle cites the case of a man in his late rsquo20s whorsquod once come to him for therapy His problem was simple mdash he couldnrsquot achieve a state of arousal unless his wife was physically violent with him In a nutshell he liked being beaten up The seeds to this behaviour were sown when he was 13 discovered Bhonsle during their sessions The book became a runaway bestseller and now rivals the Twlight series by Stephanie Meyer and the Harry Potter series by JK Rowling As a child the man once accidentally watched his parents having sex Realising that he was aroused by it he continued to do so everytime opportunity presented itself and masturbate to it Then one day he got caught by his mother who beat him up as punishment for his act sewing the imagery of sexual arousal and violence together in his head Now several years later he was married to a woman who didnrsquot agree with his lifestyle and wanted a change ldquoTeaching him to change his ways was like teaching a child to write with his left handrdquo Bhonsle says ldquoIt was a stepbystep approach and it took a long timerdquo While Bhonsle considers BDSM to be a ldquoparaphiliardquo which can loosely be defined as atypical sexual behaviour Shah advocates a little aggression in the bedroom ldquoNinety nine per cent of human beings have these urgesrdquo she says ldquoTheyrsquore very primal urges and sometimes we arenrsquot even aware of their existencerdquo She uses the structure of civilisation itself to illustrate her point ldquoThe history of mankind is riddled with masters and slaves Itrsquos the natural human order mdash therersquos always a category of an oppressor and one of the oppressedrdquo One of her cases demonstrates how a little Dominance and Submission DampS can actually be good for a relationship A Marwari couple once came to her for psychotherapy because the woman was depressed She was a 25 yearold cosmopolitan girl educated abroad who got married at 23 to a man two years older As it turned out the cause of her depression was the rather conservative and patriarchal structure of the family she married into She felt helplessly dominated and she couldnrsquot conform to the situation So Shah suggested that they use sex to correct the power imbalance In bed the woman got to play the dominatrix and the man got to be the submissive one They took about six weeks to get comfortable with the roleplaying and soon started experimenting on their own The entire exercise ended up curing her depression and she was better able to adjust to the family she was married into Is BDSM for me Shah isnrsquot opposed to the idea of BDSM at all as long as itrsquos between consenting adults who trust each other ldquoAs long as it doesnrsquot affect a personrsquos day to day life or a personrsquos mental emotional or physical balance therersquos no harm in itrdquou00a0 She does however insist on underlying the importance of trust in a relationship between partners who decide to experiment with BDSM ldquoWhen yoursquore submitting yourself or dropping your social mask mutual trust will ensure that the other person will be normal with you the next dayrdquo Shah says ldquoThat life otherwise will be the samerdquo And youngsters seem to agree Neeraj Pandey name changed on request a 24 yearold engineer from Goa has had at least five sexual partners with whom he has experimented in BDSM for the past six years After breaking up with the first girl he had sexual relations with in 2007 Neeraj met a man who complete took over his life Even though they werenrsquot sexually involved the man was his dominatrix and Pandey was the submissive one a trait that translated well into his bedroom No dominance for Arjun Vora a 22 yearold student from Jamshedpur however Hersquos been into bondage in the bedroom for about four years now ldquoNothing exceptional mdash just handcuffs a steel ruler scarves and a lot of talk Roleplay is hard work and we work with safe words if we want to stop the actionrdquo he adds Ask him why he enjoys it so much however and he says he doesnrsquot know ldquoI just dordquo is his simple answer Evidently you can just enjoy BDSM without a sinister backstory of a childhood incident He does recall what introduced him to the idea of kink in the bedroom however ldquoI read Venus in Furs by SacherMasoch after I found out the concept of kink I was pretty young when I read it and The Story of O by Reagerdquo Vora says After that it took on a life of its own His close friends know about his interest mdash in fact they gifted him a set of handcuffs on his birthday mdash and he and his girlfriend have a happy sex life ldquoIf it isnrsquot mutual it isnrsquot kinkrdquo he adds thoughtfully While yoursquoll still be hardpressed to see an open discourse on it at the town square sexual deviance is also no longer just a matter of whispers in the dark Couples are accepting it talking about it seeking guidance and using it to better their lives While debates might still rage on about whatrsquos lsquonormalrsquo and whatrsquos lsquoabnormalrsquo the fact remains that the definition of lsquonormalrsquo is everexpanding and we do owe it to pop culture for showcasing more and more ldquoweirdosrdquo Like Bella Swan And Christian Greyu00a0